The Jordan Harbinger Show - 444: Jordan & Gabe | Kidnap Me Twice, Shame on Me

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, "Kidnap me once, shame on — shame on you. Kidnap me — you can't get kidnapped again." But Jordan doesn't know any better because he comes from Michigan, so he's actually been kidnapped twice. Here, Jordan tells the story of that second time. Here, We Talk About the Time Jordan Got Kidnapped in Serbia: Kidnapping victims don't always live to tell the tale. The reason Jordan is still alive after being kidnapped (twice) is due to the fact he saw security expert Gavin de Becker on Oprah discussing what to do in just such a seemingly unlikely situation. After almost getting kidnapped in Mexico in 2000, how did Jordan find himself in a position to get kidnapped in Serbia in 2004? How did Jordan escape whatever dire fate was surely awaiting him at the dreaded second location? What are your best chances for staying alive if you ever find yourself in a similar, unenviable condition? Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/444 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.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled in.

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Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. coming up on the Jordan Harbinger show. These guys get even more angry. I don't know what happens, but they get even more angry, and they bring us down into, like, the basement area. And at this point, I'm like, we're trapped in this place. And my friend is, like, basically unconscious. I'm like, I can't leave him here by making a run for it

and jump it through a window or anything like that, right? I'm stuck. They take us to separate rooms. I now hear my friend is getting his ass beat, like, hard. I'm talking to this guy and trying to keep him chill and calm. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Astronauts and entrepreneurs,

spies and psychologists, even the occasional war correspondent, arms dealer, drug trafficker, each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. Today, this is the conclusion of our two-part series on me getting kidnapped in foreign countries. First time was Mexico. Today I'm telling my Serbia story. It's a lot longer and more involved and I think more interesting probably as far as story value is concerned. This is our final Stereo Sunday. Unless, of course, Stereo decides to renew their campaign with us. We would love that because I do enjoy doing these live. I think it's a lot of fun. So we may be live again next Friday at 2 p.m. But either way,

check out the Stereo app, iOS Store, or Android, and follow along with us next time. The Stereo app will also link in the show notes. You can listen to us live there during this, and you can ask questions directly of us in the app. We do that every time we do one of these live. If you're wondering how I manage to book all these guests for the show that are celebrities and authors and thinkers, I'm teaching you how to build your own network for free, whether you use it for work, business, pleasure, whatever it is, go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I've got a free course in there. You don't have to enter your credit card or any of that. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter. Come join us. You'll be in smart.

company. Remember, if you're listening to us live at the end, we're going to do 15 or so minutes of Q&A. Submit those in the stereo app for us at any time. There's a button on the chat there. Submit your questions. Doesn't have to be about kidnapping or anything like that. It can be any question for me at any time about anything. All right. Now here we go with Stereo Sunday's segment on getting kidnapped twice, part two here with Gabriel Mizrahi. So this story in Mexico was like kidnapping training wheels for like the read. This was the dress rehearsal for the full performance that ended up happening four years later, yeah? Yes, pretty much.

So talk to us about that. All right. So in Serbia, I was working as an English teacher initially. And then later on, I decided to go back there with a fellowship from the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, sponsors it. It's not anything that necessarily has to do with espionage defense, but they pay for it. And that was the lap of luxury man, because they gave me a great budget. and they let me live there for several months.

I was there for 14 months total or something like that. And they let me live there, paid for everything. It was such a really awesome deal. Wow. Back then in Serbia, which, by the way, before I tell this story, I want to say, I love Mexico, and I think it's a great place and has great people and great food and great culture. Serbia, same thing.

I've got great friends there. I love the place. The Balkans are fascinating. It's a beautiful country. I want to say that because I've told this story before in pieces, and then Serbian people will send me email like, hey, man, we don't. need you to kick us while we're down or like you bomb us and now you're telling us that this and that. I love Serbia. This is a bad thing that happened to me in a country that could have happened

in many different countries. I don't think it would ever happen in the United States, obviously, but I could be wrong there. But I'm sure people get kidnapped in taxis in the U.S. too. It's just a very common thing in Mexico, especially Mexico City. And in Serbia, they, at the time, 2004, they had some police officers that were pretty crappy and corrupt. And that's a legacy of socialism and and of the civil war that they had there. I'll talk a little bit about that in a second. But anyways, so in Serbia at the time, I don't know if it's still like this. If you're foreign and you're traveling on a foreign passport that's not Serbian, every time you leave the country and you come back, you have to re-register with the police. And what that means is you go to the

police station, you fill out of form, you tell them where you were, you tell them when you're coming in, or that you came in, and how long you're staying, and the address where you're staying and who you are staying with. If you stay at a hotel, the hotel does this for you. But if you are staying with private citizens, this is sort of a peak inside a not so free country. Now they're more or less free, right? Of course, back in the days of communism, they were far from it. Better than most communist countries, but far from it. You had to tell people where you were living because the police want to know where every foreigner is in the country at any given time, which is crazy to me, at least where they can be found at night.

So I would have to go in, and it was this huge pain, and it took forever, and they were rude, and the cops were dicks, and they didn't know how to do it. it and they'd make us come back and then they'd say you're too late you got to do it within 24 hours and they'd try and get money from me so i just got really sick of it the final straw for me was i came back from like austria or something like that i'd spent like a couple days they're visiting a friend and when i came back they'd said hey man you have to wait over here and like don't talk to me i'm busy and they were just kind of jerks and then they did a shift change at the police station and the new guy who had come in said okay everyone's getting locked up and i was like no no i'm just here to register and he's like, I don't care. If you're sitting here at 11 p.m., you probably did something,

because he thought I got brought in there by the cops. So he's like, I'm locking you up overnight. And I was like, dude, what? So he locked me up overnight, but he locked me up with a bunch of prostitutes and a pimp. They were fine, but they were chain smoking and they were talking loudly in Roma language all night long, smoking like unfiltered cigarettes constantly. And I was like, this is total BS, man. Like, I didn't do anything. And now I'm, like, getting lung cancer and staying awake all night. Right. And I can't even talk to these people and commiserate.

It's, like, such bullshit. So I was like, you know, I've had it with your bullshit bureaucracy. And, you know, look, I'm not expecting everything to be America. But, like, I didn't. You just threw me in a cell for no reason just because it was not the right time of day for you. That's not cool. He was just in a bad mood and didn't want to fill out the form and, like, didn't want to call anyone. You're just following the laws they told you to you.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I had work the next day. I was so pissed. I love that you're there on this, like, fancy fellow. And then you're getting thrown in jail just for like showing up and registering when they asked you to Right, exactly, exactly. And like I'd had other issues where I had like an immigration violation

And they were like, oh, you know, your visas expired. So they would treat us like crap. I remember cops like shoving me down. And then when I finally saw the judge, he was like, oh, I'm sorry, you're a student. I hate doing this, but I have to find you 50 euros. Please go get a proper visa. I'm like, oh, it's okay. I understand. And he's like, was everything okay? I was like, no, the cops like shoved me down. and tap me in the freaking leg with a nightstick. And he's like, what? So I had to call the embassy. I mean, there's all kinds of issues there.

When the government is too much authority over people and they hire the biggest dumbasses in the world to become... In Serbia, getting a job in the regular police is one of the worst jobs you can get. Oh, wow. That says a lot. If you are a bad student in school, you get sent to the police high school.

And the police high school is where all the dumbass kids go who don't try. Imagine that's your governmental authority. Yeah, those are the people you have to answer to. That's a recipe for disaster. So you get bullies that are dumb as hell and now have authority that is essentially unquestioned. And are bitter. By people. And are super bitter.

And hate Americans because, you know, we bombed them in the 90s. It was not a good situation for me to be dealing with all the time. Okay. Anyway, I went to the embassy, got an appointment. By the way, if you're ever abroad, especially in a developing country, go ahead and make friends at the embassy, the U.S. embassy, or your country's embassy, because they hire locals, and those locals are extremely well connected. So I'd call the embassy, and they were like, hold on. And then I talked to this Serbian gal who was probably like 30 working there as an administrator. And she's straight up called

the chief of police. And I got a meeting with them. And she came with me to the meeting. And he's like, if you ever have any problem, call the number on this car. It's my phone number. It's my cell phone. That's nice. That's a huge jazz set. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I had problems at borders before. And I was like, can you call this guy, he's a friend of mine and they'd be like, uh, no need. No need, sir. Go ahead. Because they were just like, do I want to get my ass chewed out by this super high level guy to try and get 10 bucks out of this guy? Like, no thanks. Right, right. Or to like throw my weight around after a beer. No thanks. So anyway, I was registered and doing that and I got sick of doing that. I stopped registering the next time I came back. And I was like, screw these guys. What are they going to do? They're so

disorganized. Well, they started showing up after a few months to the houses where I was supposed to be registered and had not re-registered. Because they knew I came back in the country, but they were like, oh, you're kind of like a ghost now. You're an unregistered foreign agent inside the country. You're not at the house where you said you were last time. And then I said, I told my friend, ah, just tell him I'm over here at another friend's house.

So the police went there. And then she said, oh, he's not here right now. She called me right away after that. They came back again. He goes, they go, where's his stuff? And she goes, he doesn't really have any stuff here. The cops were like, if he's not back here tomorrow at this time for us to talk to him or registered with the police, you're in trouble. And so my friend Yelena called me and goes, you have to move now.

And I wasn't really living with her, but she's like, go register with the cops. I was like, okay. So I go and I finally re-register, but they're like, yeah, you know, this doesn't work. You can't just skip it. You know, you're in trouble. I'm going to come visit you. And I was like, fine. So I just put down a different address and I moved again because I was like, I'm not.

going to let these cops find me and the guys that I was living with they said if the cops come here we're just not going to cooperate with them because they were they had gang affiliations and they were like these cops aren't going to mess with us wow so I said okay great so I basically was under protection from these kind of gangster guys that I stayed with there I was renting a room from their parents and they lived there in that neighborhood it was crazy they had these uh Zastava pistols and stuff so we would go shoot these Yugoslav pistols and I was like crazy you guys can just have guns here and they were like yeah we can't just have guns here and I was like oh yeah right in a gang and all that got it forgot yeah forgot you guys are in a

game you're in better hands with these guys than you were at the cop in the station that night what's funny about this and I tell this to people all the time in the United States the police protect us from gangs in developing world countries especially slavic countries eastern Europe where there's a lot of mafia you need the mafia to protect you from the government criminals protect people from the government in many cases in those countries. They also victimize people, but in my case in Serbia, I needed criminals to protect me from the government because the government was the people that were messing with me constantly. Right. There are spots of Mexico where the same thing is true. Absolutely. Why do you think the drug cartels are so popular among people? They aren't universally

because they kill so many people. But if you look at Pablo Escobar, I know it's Colombia, but kind of the same deal here, he had a base of support in Medellin, right? Because he developed it and paid a lot and wouldn't let the police abuse the people in the town, you know, made sure that they were taken care of instead of just abused and taken advantage of all the time. So in this case, I had the same thing. I was being protected by, in many ways, by this gang, who was just like some dudes that I hung out with. I went to this concert, which is called Exit. It's a music festival, and it's awesome. It's on an island that is an old Turkish fortress from the Ottoman Empire, I believe. It's something else, man. There's a huge,

huge, huge open-air fortress. So there's like 20 stages. And you can see everyone from all your favorite DJs to like the white stripes are playing there. And it's four days long and it gets like 140,000 people or something like that going to this festival called Exit. I hope they still have it because it's one of the coolest experiences, man. It's really, really something. That sounds dope. Yeah. And one of the days we were leaving probably the last day, although now I can't really remember exactly what I guess it must have been the last day. We see this black Jeep driving on the Now, there's no cars allowed on the island itself. And that's a very sort of red flag.

Also, this is one of these jeeps. I can't remember. I think they're Mitsubishi jeeps. And those are government vehicles a lot of the time. Normal people can buy them, but there's often government vehicles. And this Jeep had government plates. And I thought, oh, it's some dipshit government guy throwing his weight around. Because whenever you see anybody sort of driving recklessly in one of those things, it's always

cops. It's always like their version of the FBI used to be called state security. like derjavny besbednost is how we would pronounce that derjavny besbednost or something like that they're not nice and they're kind of like fbiiiiiii so they spend much more time terrorizing their own people than they do foreigners so they were just bugging people trying to get bribes from people trying to hit people with their car quote unquote gently to like mess with them chasing girls around throwing bottles out of their car i mean you can imagine what kind of great people, upstanding citizens, these guys are, right?

Sure, yeah. And it's like 8 o'clock, 8.30 in the morning. Right. So I'm going to meet my friend for coffee and we're walking and we see these guys and they, we're with a bunch of girls. And these girls are cute. And so the Jeep comes over to us and is trying to like drive over my buddy, literally, like knock him into the mud with a Jeep car.

Dangerous, right? Real public servants, these guys. Real public servants, yeah. And so finally, I told the girls to go left and I just smacked the car top with my hand and ran to the right because I knew that would get their attention. And then I thought, okay, I'm either going to talk my way out of this or just bail on these guys and they're not going to be able to find me. And it won't matter. And I ran with my buddy. I wasn't just mean. I was also a little nervous because I knew they were cops and I was like, what if they like ID all of us and they find out

that I'm unregistered? It's going to be such a mess. Oh, that's right. You're unregistered at this point still. Like you're still doing that dodgy thing where you're not giving them a location. So if they stop you and ask you what's up. You don't have a great status right now in the country. Okay, cool. I don't have a great status. And, of course, it was a mistake for me to be doing that dodgy thing. Like, just do what the government told you to do in those countries within reason. It sucks, but, you know, it's like paying taxes. You just do it. You just do it. You spend a night in jail and you deal with it. Yeah, you just hang out with some gypsy prostitutes, man, Roma prostitutes. Exactly. You got a story. It's one day in your life. Yeah. Exactly. So these guys,

finally, they stopped me. They stopped my friend. My friend is a Serbian guy, but he lives in Italy. He has like all, he used to have all these organized crime connections, but then his family sort of fell out of favor with the current regime after Slobodan Milosevic, you know, ended or whatever, and he had to move. So, I mean, you know, you're hanging out with these kind of dodgy folks, but that's what Serbia was kind of like for me back then. I don't know. I was just hanging out with those kind of people. They weren't bad people. It's just like a lot of people had stories and history like that. Like my boss, when I was an English teacher, she had spent time making like IEDs or something like that to blow up UN jeeps in Kosovo, and she would tell us about that kind of thing.

And she's like, you're the only American. I haven't tried to kill. Ha, ha, ha, ha, funny. What a laugh. Cool. You want to grab lunch? Yeah. What we did, she was like a super close.

She was like my second mom, super nice. And she'd say all these nasty things about Americans. She's like, but I don't mean you. You know that, right? And I'm like, kind of, but I'm getting sick of hearing about it, you know? Great cast of characters. Okay. Great cast of characters.

Yeah. So these guys decide to mess with us. And then they, I don't know if they're radioing it in or calling it in or anything like that. I don't even think they could do that, but they basically decide that my friend and I are going to be taken in. And they're taking our phones and they're taking our personal belongings and stuff like that. Again, I should not have given up these things because these guys are almost not real cops. I should have just sort of been like, no. But it's hard to say.

And then they're like, get in the car, get in the car, get in the car, get in the car. Well, they're saying get on the car. Get on the car. And I'm like, okay. Are you trying to figure out if they're asking you to just climb on top of their car? Or you were just like... Well, wait for it. So I'm thinking, okay, and I try to open the back door.

And I notice in the back, there's a gun and a bag of Doritos. I just remember this bag of Doritos. And I felt like, oh, okay, they have Doritos and a gun on the seat in the car. So I thought, if I get back here and I need to escape or something, I literally am armed. So I was trying to figure out a way to see if I could sit on. top of the gun so that they couldn't see that I had it. And then I would have to see, is it loaded? Is there one in the chamber? Is the safety on? You know, what kind of gun is it? And also not just get my ass shot, like, by holding it. Sure. And not be planning to use it. So those things were going

through my head. But I couldn't open the door. And I'm like, why, you know, what's going on? And he said, no, get on the car. No room in the foreigners in the car. And I was like, oh, you're not just misusing a pronoun in, or not a pronoun. A, um, what are the like in on? Is that a preposition. Preposition. Preposition. I was, anything you can do to a creepy foreign government vehicle, that's a preposition. That's a proposition. Okay.

By around. Yes. Yeah. Preposition. I thought he was misusing a preposition because prepositions are really difficult in foreign languages because you say like get on board, but other languages will say get in or get through. Like you just, they change. They're totally nonsensical.

These guys are saying get on the car. Get on the car. And I thought, they must mean in the car, right? Like getting on the plane. No, I'm going to get in the plane. Right. Evil can evil is going to get on. on the plane. I think that's a George Carlin thing, right? So I'm trying to get in. I can't get in. He goes,

no room for foreigners in the car. No room for foreigners. And I'm like, okay, because these guys like hate Americans. They were talking about how they're going to beat up an American. We bombed them. I'm like, yeah, you're real, you have a real sophisticated and nuanced outlook at foreign relations buddy. I was probably 11 when that was happening, but cool. What I realized he meant was, you have to stand on the running board, which is that little thing between the tires where you step on it to get into a vehicle. Right. Step on the running board and hold on to the sunroof, which was open. Yeah. Okay. And again, it was a very muddy off road, no real streets island where this Turkish fortress was.

So they were going very slowly. And it just didn't matter. Okay. Because I thought, okay, I can get on the side of this and they can go like maximum five to seven miles an hour. So I can just jump off and I'm gone. They got out. They robbed a popcorn vendor and a beer vendor. they just took the guy's stuff, threw it in the car, cracked open beers, and handed us beers. And I thought, oh, okay, they're just messing around now. Like, we're drinking beers, we're eating popcorn. Like, it's, we're just, we're clowning. Like, these guys are just bored.

They wanted a couple friends for the night. You're not in danger yet. They're just messing around and they wanted company. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show. I'm talking about getting kidnapped.

We'll be right back. And now back to me getting kidnapped on the Jordan Harbinger show. I'm not going to lie. So far, this is actually sounding kind of weirdly fun. It was exciting, but it was also scary because you don't know what's going to happen. But I even told my friend over the top of the Mitsubishi, whatever it was, you know, car. I look at him and I go, so far it's a great story, but we have to keep our wits about us and be really careful. And he's like, I don't know what's going to.

He goes, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm listening. And I go, yeah. And I go, maybe don't mention that you speak Serbian too. and he's like, I know you either. So we're not letting on that we spoke Serbian, which by the way, I guess before I forget, that's one of the major lessons

is anytime you have an advantage in a situation like this, never let the other side know what it is because then they can try and mitigate what that is. Smart. Right? So like, these guys weren't trying to hide what they were saying

because they thought, these foreigners don't speak Serbian. So you don't want them to know that I do because, you know, I thought like, oh, what if I impress them with my language knowledge? and then they know I don't hate Serbia and that I live here. And I was like, no, no, no.

Right. Right now I'm going to hold that close to the vest because they're like, yeah, let's go for a drink with these guys and then we'll let them go. And then they were calling people on my cell phone that were in the saved numbers. And they were like, hey, we have your friends. And the people were like, what? And they're like, don't worry, don't worry. We're just going to have a drink and then let them go. And then I was like, okay, cool.

You know, we're fine. Well, as we're getting on the street now, I'm like, oh, crap, we better be careful. Like, we're on the road now driving. and we have beer in one hand and we're holding on with another. And there's like motor bikers passing us and they're like, yeah, because we're drinking, hanging out the side of a car. There's a bus behind us that's like honking and like the people are laughing and the bus driver's like rolling his eyes.

I mean, it's just, you know, silly stuff like that because we look like we're just clowning it up. And then we get into a neighborhood and the guys go, what should we do? And then the other guy goes, yeah, I don't know. You know what? Screw these guys. Let's just throw them in the river or something. I'm sick of this. I don't want to deal with this.

Do you think there's going to be any problems? The other guy's like, nah, just put a tire around him and throw them over the bridge or something like that. That took a turn. And then I was like, whoa, that took a crazy turn. Like, nothing even happened. They just got bored of us or something. Or they were like, they just decided to like be violent.

I think they were unmet. On drugs. I was about to say that. They sound like they're on drugs. Yeah. They were very, very, very weird. And they would turn on a dime. They'd go from laughing to like, they like,

they like would stab my friend with these sharp objects later on. And they would laugh about it. And then they would put the blood off on a tissue and hold it up and go, ah, and like yell. They were just high as hell. That sounds like meth. Yeah. Yeah. And they kept saying, do you have any drugs?

And we were like, no, no. And then I remember them turning to each other and going, ah, too bad. Oh. Too bad. They don't have anything. There you go. Yeah. So I think they were like looking for us to have something that they could party with as well.

And these guys were really, you know, they'd been up all night. Their eyes were bloodshot red. Like, I really think it's straight at a meth. it's a very messed up situation. And so finally we're in this neighborhood. You know, we're getting sort of stopped. Here's where I knew things were really bad. This is before they said they were going to put us in a tire

and throw us over a bridge. That would have been a good clue. But before that happened, we passed traffic police. And in Europe, traffic police have these like signs they hold up that say like slow and they can signal you to pull over. And they're just on the side of the road wearing those high vis vests. And we passed these cops in a car. And they yelled like, what are you doing?

Because we're hanging out of the car drinking. The cops get in the car, turn on the lights, and start chasing us. And these guys in their government car slow down a little bit, reach out the window and just wave these guys off. And they stop, turn off their lights, and turn around. Oh, man. And I go, oh, damn. Yeah. Like, they could tell just from the car that we were not only not stopping, but that these guys could just do whatever they wanted.

And they were like, screw it. Wow. Like imagine hanging outside a car with a beer and a cop chases you. And then the driver just goes, nope, not dealing with you. And they're like, okay, I guess that settles it. Fair enough. On my way. Yeah.

So I knew these guys were above the law, right? We didn't even stop. They just sort of slowed down so they could run and roll the window and be like, nah, screw off to the traffic cops. That was scary. So I turned to my buddy and I go, man, we're in for it. That's not a good sign. Because we thought, oh, good, the cops are going to pull us over and we'll be like,

dude, these guys are bugging us. and if they're like, well, I don't believe you. We'll be like, please just take us to the police station then. You know, arrest us. Yeah. Get us away from these psychos. That didn't happen. So we end up going into this house that was, and again, never go to the secondary location.

Should have thought of that. But again, these are cops, right? So I didn't know exactly what was going on. That was a little bit of a problem. Had these been regular people and never would have happened this far. But these were state security officers, so you don't think you can do anything. That makes sense. I would have done the same thing.

I'm not about to run from these guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we end up at this house, and the house had a bar in it, and I remember there was a bartender, and it was really early in the morning, which is really weird, and the guy's like, what? And he opens up these little, like, you know how, like, some buildings have those metal shutters in front of the windows when they're closed. They close at night, and they're, like, metal protective things for the front glass. They banged on that. This guy opens it up and then lets us in, and he's like, what are you doing? And they said something to him in Serbia, and that I don't remember, pride and understand. And the guy looks at us, and he looks kind of normal. He's a really big guy. He looks kind of normal. And he goes, don't worry.

I think you're going to be okay. And I went, okay, because he could tell we were scared shitless at this point. And he's being really cool and he's being really nice. And then these two idiot cops go, bring us water and keep bringing them rakea, which is like this homemade shleva vitsa, like homemade liquor that's really strong, like schnapps. And they were like, well, let's have a drinking contest. And I was like, okay, they're going to drink me out of the thing. the table and I go, can I have a bottle of water too? And the guy goes, glass of water. I go, do you have a

bottle? Can I have a bottle? And I pointed to the bottle. He gave me the bottle of water. I slammed about, I don't know, 75% of it to hopefully slow down alcohol absorption. Not sure if it even works, but it's probably been an empty stomach. And then every time I would take a shot, I would quote unquote, chase it with water, but I would spit a bunch of it into the bottle. Oh, nice. So I was diluting the alcohol with what was left of the water. Smart. In the bottle. And I ended up going to the bathroom with the bottle, dumping it out and filling it up again in the sink. Super smart. Damn. Yeah. Well, I figured that was, I can't be passed out drunk because then. Well, what are you going to do then? Yeah, exactly. Right. My friend is not, I have no way to tell my friend to do the same thing.

And I have no way of getting my phone. I have nothing I can do with this guy at all. So he's getting wasted, even though he knows what's going on because we understood the Serbian when they told the bartender. The bartender finally goes, enough of this. I'm not serving you guys anymore. And he left. And I was like, oh, man, we're so screwed now. These guys get even more angry. I don't know what happens, but they get even more angry.

And they bring us down into like the basement area. And at this point, I'm like, we're trapped in this place. And I don't know how to get out at all. So they take us in the back. And my friend is like basically unconscious. I'm like, I can't leave him here by making a run for it and jump it through a window or anything like that, right? I'm stuck.

So they take us in the back, and the guys are now, one of the guys is kind of being cool to me because we're just talking about food and about like Serbian girls and like, you know, oh, America sucks, we bombed you. I don't understand why. You know, like I love Europe. I love Serbia. I love Sarma, which is like this food, right? Talking about that. My friends is a bad drunk and he's like belligerent and argumentative. And I'm like, oh, this is going so poorly. So they take us to separate rooms. I now hear my friend is getting his. ass beat, like hard. That's dark. I'm talking to this guy and trying to keep him chill and calm. And I'm in the back talking and trying to keep the guy calm. So what I was doing was staying as

calm as possible. Not again too calm that I'm like, everything's going to be fine, not delusionally so. But I'm a fan of the line of thinking that in a stressful situation, whoever thinks the clearest wins. And so I'm chatting. I'm trying to control the frame of the conversation. So for these cops, I could tell they're getting carried away with everything. They're starting to fight with each other. They're yelling. I'm keeping my guy calm because I'm staying super chill. So I'm essentially controlling the conversation.

And remember, I'm talking to him in English and I'm making him repeat himself. And I'm trying to wear him down emotionally and wear him down, I guess, intellectually, so that he gets tired. Because I figure this guy is probably coming down from whatever drugs he's been on. And he's probably thinking really hard trying to use English. that's really bad. And I'm telling him I don't understand any Serbian. He's jumping through my hoops.

Right. Right. So he'd be like, I'm going to beat you up. You bombed us. And I'd be like, it's where we met like this, huh? We could have had a drink together.

Where's the best restaurant in town? And he'd get mad and then he'd come back and he'd be like, I'm tired. And then he'd start telling me about his favorite food. And I just realized he's exhausted. He's beat. He's on a come down,

like I said, from the drugs and the alcohol. And I just basically made the bet that I had more energy than he did. And I had a caffeine. tablet from me from the night before, because we were staying up all night listening to EDM at this festival. So I popped one of the caffeine pills in the morning as soon as I saw that things were going downhill. Because I was like, oh, I'm going to go to bed after this. As soon as we ended up at like the

safe house area, I was like, I'm popping this because I need my wits about me. Yeah, yeah. So I was sharp and I knew I had probably six hours of caffeine pill or whatever. And these guys were tired, so good for me. And at this point, you know, my friend's getting beat up. He's like really not doing well. I can't see him, but I can hear it. And I'm humanizing myself to the captors. I'm saying things like, look, man, I had nothing to do with the bombing of your country. I was 12 when that happened. That was a lie, I think. I was really probably like 17 or 18. Yeah, you're a little older, I think if I'm doing the math correctly. But I wanted them to imagine a 12 year old kid in their head, rather than like a military aged male who's sitting in front of them. I told them one of the reasons

we rushed away from the police car. We were worried about the girls we were with because, you know, we've heard that like some guys can be aggressive. You know, I'm basically making it about other and sort of trying to put us on the same team. I'm using psychology as much as I can at this point with this dumb as opposed drunk, met out cop. And again, these aren't regular cops. They're kind of like FBI types. Right.

I guess another legend. So humanize yourself to your captors, control the situation. Speak foreign languages. That's a huge asset, right? I spoke Serbian. So I could understand what they were saying. Game changing advantage. You never know when the language you speak is going to suddenly become a life-save

asset. I think I said this before, Gabe, right? Keep information close to the vest and acknowledge that your captors may not even have a plan and exploit weaknesses in that. So if it's a plan kidnapping, it may matter a little, right? If it's a plan kidnapping, they probably have much better logistics in place. They've got a place where they plan on taking you. They've got an idea of what they're going to do with you in a spur of the moment type of abduction, which is more rare, I would imagine. If you're Dealing with people with no plan, this becomes very important because you have a massive, massive advantage if there's no plan. They probably just brought us here on a whim at this house what we were at, right?

They didn't have restraints. They probably don't have any security in place. They had restraints, but they didn't have proper restraints, which was great because that plays later on. They're constantly bickering with one another, so I was looking for opportunities in those cracks. And there's a point where you can decide if you've been defeated and just have to wait for rescue, and there's also, of course, the idea that you can outlast your captors. So you can also find holes in the plan.

You can figure out how to take advantage of them. These guys had no clue what they were doing. That was the beginning of my opportunity. We can just confuse them and we can run out their plan and then eventually look for opportunities to escape. Unfortunately, my friend was getting his ass kicked. So I knew he was going to be in a worse condition, which is not good. So he's in the other room.

You're in the other room. And are you making progress with this guy? Like, what's happening? So I'm keeping him calm. And eventually the other guy gets sick of beating up my friend, I think. And I was like, look, man, I'd love to keep talking, but I feel sick. And he's like, oh. And I was like, I need water.

And he goes, let me get you some water. I was like, can you go get me something to drink? I feel really, really sick. I feel really. And I basically stopped cooperating. I was like, I feel really sick. And so he goes, and I thought he was either going to go get me some water from the sink upstairs or check with the other guy or something.

They ended up getting in their car and leaving. And I don't know what the deal was, but they ended up leaving. And I don't know if they went to go get water or if they just gave up on us or what. And I ran into the room where my friend was. He was out of it. And they had injected him with something also, which really sucks. So scary. Yeah.

He had an injection mark on his arm. From hopefully not a dirty needle. So he had to go to the hospital and get like a, you know, blood panels done and stuff like toxicology. It turned out they gave him heroin. Oh, no. Yeah. So I grab my friend. We get out one of the windows of this bar house thing. It's like a big window, like a veranda almost. And we run to this restaurant, which like we're in like a random place. We like run and run and run. We go to this restaurant area. And I knew we looked bad because the waitress came up to us and goes, hi, can I help you? In like mid-sentence, she turns around. Oh, God. And me and my friends sit down in the outdoor chairs. And then suddenly the police come and we're like, what?

And they were like, get out of here, you dumb junkies. And I was like, oh, hi. So we got attacked by the police. And they were like, what? None of this makes any sense. You're just a junkie. You're a stupid junkie. You come here to do drugs.

And I was like, no, we got attacked by the cops. And what was interesting was, I'm seated in the back of the police car. The traffic cops call this the militia or whatever, which are like the more armed, like heavily armed cops, like the more serious cops. Those guys were in the back of the car. The guys calling me stupid junkies, stupid idiots, blah, blah, blah. They didn't believe it. They called the ambulance for us. My friend, the ambulance driver's like, I want to help you, but you have to tell me what drugs you were doing.

And I was like, I didn't do anything. They injected my friend with something. And he goes, they, who's they? I was like, the cops. And he was like, you guys are idiots. I can't help you if you're going to lie to me. So then we end up in the back. I am in the back of the police car with this younger cop.

And I go, the police beat me up. The police beat me up. He goes, you liar, you stupid junkie. This didn't happen. I go, no, it was the cops. It was the cops. He goes, really? We did this to you.

I go, no, it was the guys in the black Mitsubishi Jeep. And he stops and goes, oh, man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I'm really, really sorry. This is a cop, like a young cop. He recognized who that must have been. So he knew right away that I wasn't lying because what foreigner comes and says

I got beat up by the police and then names the exact make and model of a car with a sort of terror squad cops. Yeah. And he knows of these people, whoever they are. And what I found out later from Serbian friends was these guys don't just pick foreigners. They go after Serbian men and women all the time. They steal people's stuff. They beat people's ass in the road.

They shoot people. They do all kinds of horrible stuff. Wow. So, yeah, they're like secret police, you know. They're like not so secret police. And the ranks that these guys are drawn from are not always, but at least during that time in the 90s and a little bit later. These guys were from Bosnia. They had Bosnian accent.

They were Bosnian Serbs. So during the Civil War, in all likelihood, these guys were in a Serbian militia, which, you know, killed a bunch of Croatian old people or whatever or Bosniak Muslims. And then when they lost that civil war or their area where the Civil War was, you know, maybe it got taken over by Bosniaks or Croats, wherever they lived in Bosnia. they were relocated to Belgrade, and since they were in the militia, they needed a job, and they needed a job where they couldn't be prosecuted for crimes committed against other people that they'd committed when they were during the Civil War. So what the geniuses in the Serbian government did at that time was they made these guys policemen at the state security level, which I think gives them immunity from prosecution.

Oh, my God. So they made a bunch of PTSD war criminal damaged militia guys from the middle of nowhere, country town, Bosnia. They brought them to the big city and they said, here's a regular salary and unlimited authority that's screw with whoever you want and absolutely no future prospects whatsoever. Oh, God. Have at it.

That is terrible. So these guys just run around terrorizing the local population essentially. Terrifying. Imagine being policed by those guys every single day. That's rough. And I found all this out, 2020 hindsight, of course, because one of my students when I was an English teacher, he was like a UN delegate for Serbia in the,

cause of a war crimes tribunal. And I called him and I was like, dude, can you do anything about this? Because the guys who we escaped from, they knew who we were and they were still threatening us after we escaped. Oh, wow. So I was like, can you do something about this? And he's like, I can't even touch these guys. And he's like a UN delegate, you know, he's like a, he works directly with like the foreign minister of Serbia. That's wild. He couldn't do anything about it. And that's what really freaked me out. Because these guys would like, they would call like friends of hours because they had the phone numbers still. And they would be like, hey, where's Jordan? I want to pay him a visit, you know, stuff like that. And so what we did to take care of the situation,

went to the U.S. Embassy, they were so useless. They said, you know, hey, we can't do anything about this. It's really hard to get anything done in Serbia already, so we're not going to make a big deal about it. They were really, really useless. And I have to say, to this day, I'm extremely disappointed, but I found out the hard way that the U.S. diplomat, you know, embassy staff, they don't give a shit about people in the country. Oh, really? They don't give a shit about Americans who are there. No, they're just trying to get their stupid stuff

done. You know, their diplomatic stuff done. Later on, when the media set, they told us, don't go to the media. The media started writing stories about this, saying, like, we were picking fights with these guys, or like, we'd attack women and the cops were rescuing the women. Just bull crap like that. Local media

started writing about it? Local media. They were like, oh, over the weekend, this happened with these guys. Oh, wow. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show. I'm the guest today. I'm talking about getting nabbed overseas. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening and supporting this show. It's your support of us and our advertisers,

specifically that keeps us going. So if you like any of the products or you're buying some gifts for a friend or you want to check out what we've got, go to jordanharbinger.com slash deals. That's where all the sponsors are, all the codes, everything, all in one place. Please do consider supporting those who support us and make this all possible. And don't forget, we've got worksheets for every episodes with the takeaways and some drills and exercises.

This episode is no exception. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And now the rest of my story about getting kidnapped in Serbia. Do you have those stories? Were they on the internet? No. I mean, they were on, one, it was front page news because I was getting of their newspaper Politica. Because people were calling me, it must have been on the internet because I got a call from my friend in Australia who was Serbian.

And he said, are you okay? And I said, what are you talking about? He goes, I'm reading Politica. You know, Serbia, you know, whatever Serbian website. I wish I still had the story. Oh, man, that would be cool. It would be cool. And he's like, are you okay?

Your name is in the newspaper on the front page. And I was like, oh, God. And he's like, yeah, it sounds like the police, like, had a run in with you and all this stuff. And I was like, oh, my gosh. So, yeah, the U.S. diplomatic staff didn't care at all. They expressed some sympathy. But then later on, they colluded with Serbian media and said, we're just going to say that you lied about this.

And when I confronted them, they said, dude, just, You're alive. We don't want our jobs to get any harder. Right. So just whatever we say with the media, just ignore it, man. Just be grateful you're alive. That's what the consular security officer said to me. Oh my God.

And I said, I hope that this happens to you and nobody gives the shit. And he was like, well, fuck you then, buddy. You know, like he was just a dickhead, like a total dickhead. Yeah. What we ended up doing, and I said, I'm taking this into my own hands because if you guys can't help me be safe, then I have to figure this out myself. I was thinking about leaving. But my friend who had the organized crime connections and lived in Italy,

he was not a, he was like, no, screw this. You know, there's only one way to get respect and like, these guys are going to come after you. And he also told me, look, these guys, if they want to mess with you, they're going to come after you in the United States too, because there's tons of Serbian gangsters and stuff in the United States. And what are they doing? They're calling people. They're not going to like stop calling. He goes, the only safe way to do this is to do this in the Serbian way. And I was like, okay, I'll trust your judgment. I shouldn't have done that, but luckily nothing bad happened. Also, the most Serbian sentence I've ever heard in my life. Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. It's just.

Just like some grand theft auto. The only way to do this is to do this the Serbian way. So we go to the Italian embassy. Karabinieri guys really surprised, really upset, says, I can't do anything about this. Serbian police and law enforcement never cares when we report crimes against Italian citizens because my friend was Italian citizenship and Serbian citizenship. Same story for them. Same story, but less of an a-hole.

Like the American guy was a straight-up, just dick about it. Like, and the Italian guy expressed sympathy and got us some coffee. And then here's the most Italian thing ever. The Carabiniere goes, you should tell the gardener. And I'm like, okay, that doesn't make sense, but okay. My friend's translating, because I don't speak Italian. Tell the gardener, tell the gardener. I got, what do you mean?

Tell the gardener. Tell the gardener. What are you talking about? So then finally, Carbiniari guy goes, go across the street to the Italian coffee shop. It's where the embassy staff go to get coffee. It's the best coffee around, and I'll send over the gardener. And I'm like, what? All right.

So I go and sit down, and I have coffee, and my friend orders coffee, and he's so upset. and this super tall, very white guy comes out of the embassy and sits down and he's so calm and so nice and so caring and so cool. And I'm like, what do you do? And he goes, I'm the gardener. And I'm like, why the fuck is anybody?

Why are you sending the gardener? What is anybody going to do? What's this gardener guy going to do? And he goes, here's what I'm going to do. Do you guys have 1,200 euros? And I was like, yeah, I mean, why? And he goes, I need to bring some friends with me. And we're going to take care of this

and make sure that it's fine. and you should come so that you can sleep at night because then you'll see that it's fine. I'm like, okay, so this guy gets these like super gangster looking like thuggy guys who I think were Albanian finds these guys, calls us at like 10 p.m., has us drive 90 minutes out to where they are,

and he's got these guys, and they are more scared than anyone ever done, been scared in their whole life. Oh, wow. And he goes, what do you want to do? And I go, I want to throw them off a bridge with a tire, around it. Like they said they were going to do to us. And the guys were like, no, no, no, no, no.

And I was like, maybe we should let him live. What do you think? And then the guys like, the gardener goes, I don't know. It's up to you. Jordan says, we have to kill you. Basically, saying this in Serbian with an Italian accent to these guys. And they're like, no, no, we're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry. We're never going to do this again. You know, all the stuff. And I'm like, I don't know. I still kind of want to throw you off that bridge. You know, you, you were going to do this to us. And the guys were like so scared that I felt bad. for them. Oh, wow. And I was like, what are you going to do? And he's like, I'm going to lose your number. I don't, I'm sorry. I deleted my number out of their phones myself. And then I thought better of it.

And I threw their phones into the river. Nice. And I said, let them walk home while they're still restrained. Because we're in the middle of like, I don't know, some town. I said, and it's kind of cold, if I recall correctly, like at night. And I was just like, let them walk home while their hands are tied up, you know, like, I don't give a crap. So the gardener and the, and the, these Albanian dudes or whatever, they didn't say anything. So they looked sort of Albanian. There's a lot of like dark featured folks there. So I just assumed that they were.

Maybe they were Italian. And then we drove back to Belgrade. And then I left because I was like, I just want to be damn sure. But my friend lived there for a while. And he's like, we never heard from those guys ever again. Wow. I'm surprised that he stayed actually. He lived there.

He lived there. Okay. And he had a lot of organized crime connections. I was going to say he knows the gardener. So the thing that I don't understand to this day is, is the gardener and Nick name or is the gardener like their slang term for their Italian state spy agency that the guy was from? Or is the gardener just like a mafioso that knew some mafia guys? And he just happens to be on the payroll of the embassy as the gardener. But obviously there's where was he gardening? The embassy is in

the middle of Belgrade. It's a city. There's no lawn. I mean, there's no lawn. I mean, I didn't, you didn't walk up to this guy holding some gardening shears. You know what I mean? No. I think that's a role. And don't you hire a local landscaper to take care of the embassy flowers? Like, why do you need your own gardener? So the whole thing made no sense. They didn't fly out the greatest gardening artist of Milan for this job. So I'm like, I think it's just a guy whose job it is to sort of like take care of business that's off the books. To trim the hedges.

Yeah. Yes, to trim the hedges, if you will. And they call him the gardener and he probably gets paid a small salary from the embassy. But he took our 1,200 euros and he probably like paid these, you know, thug dudes 100 euros and pocketed at 1,000. Jesus. And then like took care of business. And we had that guy's phone number and he's like, if there are any problems, call me. I'm the gardener.

And I remember being like, what happened? It would be funny if you call them and you're like, hey, do you mow lawns or? Do you still do gardening? Because no, no, no, no. He's like, yeah, I could help. No, no, no, literally. I just moved into a really nice house and the lawn needs a little work. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're going to end up with like some Albanian guys coming over with facial scars and giant, you know, muscles who are going to cut your lawn. Oh, my God, dude. Yeah. That's wild. It's terrifying. do lots of weird stuff happen in Serbia. I love Serbia.

Did you go back after that trip? I did go back again, only after having my friend, my friend worked for a Japanese tobacco company, and they had a security guy who was former state, like a spy in Serbia. And I go, can you have him look in their systems and see if I have any problems? And the guy did, and for a hundred bucks,

he gave like a full check. And I'm nowhere to be found in any computers. Well, I got to say, you made it out of these two stories pretty well, unscathed, You're luckier than some other people, I know, in those situations. Sure. That's extraordinary. That is truly extraordinary.

Do you feel like you're a different person because you went through those experiences? Yeah. I'll tell you what. After the Mexico one, I was like, wow, that was really scary. Stuff happens. I'm fine. I'm great. But then after the Serbia one, I started to be like, I bet that I can die really easily

and that everyone thinks they're immortal at age 24. Like I had this, the day I went to that festival, I was like, nothing can stop me, I'm invincible, stay up all night drinking, you know, the young people stuff. After that, I was like, my body can get holes put in it and the holes don't heal up and I can get shot and killed and I can get thrown into a river and die. Wow. You felt your mortality at that level. I felt my mortality at that level so strongly that I realized that was like the death of my

innocence when it comes to, I'm going to be fine, everything's going to be fine. And I was like, there's a lot of situations that don't end up fine. Yeah. And this is one of those that could have been so close to not being fine. Yeah. Yeah. That's so crazy. You must feel grateful on so many levels.

I mean, just to come out of something like that with a good story and not something worse or not at all, you know. Yeah. No kidding. You're the one who brought me to North Korea actually the first time. Did any of these stories make you second guess going to North Korea? Yeah. The first time I went to North Korea, I was like, how bad can it be?

It's probably going to be fine. And bear in mind, there were no Westerners had been held or anything. But now people, since that show aired, the North Korea episode, people are like, ah, I want to go. I have a Portuguese passport. Maybe I should go. And I'm like, go ahead, you know, a lot of people go and it's uneventful. But I don't think I can go again, you know, until things really open up.

And Kim Jong-un is no longer, like, in charge running things. Right. Because I stopped going in 2016, 2015, 2015. When did we stop going? 2015, 14, 15, 16? Something like that. Yeah. And I stopped going because I was like,

hey, this is getting too heavy duty. You know, people are getting stopped here and arrested here. And so now I'm much more careful. Now I have a kid. So it's a totally different story. Right. But even before, even before I'd met Jen, where I still theoretically should have been in my I'm invincible phase of life, this Serbia story made damn sure that I was no longer

thinking like that. Right. Right. I don't know what to say, man. Those are crazy stories. If I heard that, I would be like, you hired the best writing team. This is going to be a great show. Yeah, hire a good writing team.

The details are incredible, though. Like the gardener and the... The gardener. The gardener. I don't get why. Yeah. That I remember because it was so weird. And the Mitsubishi and the...

Man, like it's so vivid. It's just wild. Yeah, there's a lot more to the story, but none of it is interesting. Like the regular cops came and interviewed us and then they were like, hey, we can't do anything because these guys are state security officers. It's not like we never went to the cops. Right. You know, after that.

It's just that they were like, this is fruitless. Right. There's nothing we can do about. Well, that's what's wild is like you come from a country like the states. You think things are going to work the way they should. Systems are going to be in place for stuff like this. I can rely on custom and habit and like basic decency. And then you get to a place like that where it's truly lawless in so many levels. And you get caught up with the people are supposed to be protecting you or messing with you. And it's like, what do you do? Then it's really all on you and a big dose of luck, I guess. To get out of that situation, okay, which is wild. And I'm glad you did because I don't know, we wouldn't have been friends if you didn't. So that's sad. That's right. That's true. You know what it's interesting here is I told this story a few times probably, you know, more than 10 years ago, you know, right when it happened in 2004, I told a few people. And I remember especially Serbian people in America would be like, this is BS, whatever,

I don't believe it. These are Serbian Americans. There were a couple people in law school who were Serbian from Serbia. And when I told them, they instantly were like, oh yeah, that happens. Oh, interesting. So I thought that was interesting because, you know, I'll meet somebody in Chicago who's like a second generation Serb and they're like, yeah, BS. I love Serbia. Everybody's nice and friendly. It's an awesome place. And I'm like, I don't disagree with that. But when you meet an actual Serbian who lived in Serbia, they're like, dude, that happens all the time. That happens all the time. Because there was just, and under Slobodan Milosevic, I mean, dude, of course. That's stuff happened. Yeah, it's not going to work properly. The thing about corruption is that there's so many layers to it, right? Like, there's the culture of the country in which it happens. The fact that they don't pay police well, there's the fact that you mentioned in this country in particular, they're hiring the worst people to be the people who's supposed to be protecting everybody, which is insane. I mean, like, once you get three or four of those problems together, it's a

recipe for disaster. Exactly. How is it going to work? Anyway, that's craziness. So, crazy. Look, I love doing this one. Links to anything we mentioned. We'll link into the show notes as well at Jordan Harbinger.com. Worksheets for the episode are in the show notes, transcripts in the show notes. There's going to be a video of this interview going up on our YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Gabriel at Gabe Mizrahi on Twitter or at Gabriel Mizrahi on Instagram. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems and tiny habits over at our six-minute networking course that's free

over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig the well before you get thirsty. You got to build relationships before you need them. This show is created in association with podcast one. My amazing team is Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends

when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's interested in, I don't know, weird kidnapping stories or just stories in general, please do share this with them. Hopefully you find something great in every episode of the show. So please share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. I hope you never have to apply what you've learned today, though. I got a caveat that, right? Hopefully you never need any of this. But if you do apply what you hear on the show, especially in the other episodes, I would love that. To live what you

listen. And we'll see you next time. We've got a preview trailer of our interview with Navy Seal and veteran Jock Willick, like you've never heard him before. leadership is the most important on the battlefield. Every characteristic that you can have for leader can be taken to an extreme. Even the most important characteristic that I talk about all the time, which is humility. You've got to be humble as a leader. You've got to always look, okay, how can I improve? I need to listen to other people.

Well, as a leader, you can actually be too humble where you don't stand up when somebody's telling you to do something that you don't think is right, but you're like, hey, I'm humble. So I'm going to do it anyways. Well, if you don't think it's right, you actually shouldn't do it. Every positive characteristic can be taken to the extreme that it becomes a negative. And that is why as a leader, you have to be balanced. Be humble or get humbled is a term that I love. Can you tell us what this means? The nature of the world is if you're not humbled, you are going to get humbled.

So that's a good attitude to have. And it's a good attitude to always think, you know, I need to stay humble. But this is the dichotomy. This doesn't mean that you're completely passive. And there are times, as humble as you should be, there are times when you need to stand up and say no. You know, Laif and I joke about it. Sometimes the most we'd get to sleep was when we were in the field.

There's a funny picture of myself and Dave Burke on a rooftop. It's probably, it looks like it's about 11 o'clock in the morning, and we're both sitting there. We're both asleep. We're both sitting there. It's 110 degrees. Yeah, we're both asleep. And clearly, this was the first time we had to rest in 24.

or 48 hours. You learn to sleep anywhere on concrete and floors and stairwells and whatever else. For more with Jocko, including why we should stop being the easy button for those we manage and lead, and the concept of leadership capital, how to build it, when to use it, and when not to use it. Check out episode 93, right here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Now there are more ways to be a team with Microsoft Teams. Bring everyone together in one space with a new virtual room. Collaborate live, drawing, sharing, and building ideas with, everyone on the same page.

And make sure more of your team is seen and heard with up to 49 people on screen at once. Learn more about all the newest teams features at Microsoft.com slash teams. 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. 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