The Jordan Harbinger Show - 47: Feedback Friday | How to Set Boundaries and Stop People Pleasing

Episode Date: May 25, 2018

Jordan (@JordanHarbinger) and Jason (@jpdef) are back to banter every week and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday on The Jordan Harbinger Show! 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! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: How do you stop yourself from freezing up when it's time for a difficult conversation -- or sugar-coating the point you're trying to make beyond recognition? How can you change the atmosphere from just hanging out with a friend to a date? You're improving yourself while your friends are content to get high and play video games all day. Can you help them up, or will they just drag you down? Do your friends really want to be friends with you? Should you accept the life-changing dream job offer even though it's just seasonal, or stick with the job you hate until you can finish college? If you've been self-employed for most of your life, how do you make the transition to working for others -- especially when you're your only solid reference? When you're the soft-spoken one in the group, how can you assert enough presence to remain visible and part of the conversation? You and your friend started a project years ago, and he's since slacked in his responsibilities despite repeated promises to resume. How can you outsource his job -- or get him to take his job seriously -- without offending him? Recommendation of the Week: Tickled Quick shoutouts to the San Francisco CastBox team and Steve Davis! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jpdef and Instagram at @JPD, and check out his other show: Grumpy Old Geeks. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Full show notes and resources can be found here.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. I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. Here on the Jordan Harbinger show, we love having conversations with our fascinating guests. And this week, we had Ryan Holiday talking about how to solve for what you want in life. This is a guy who seemingly just figured out what he wanted to do right away and ended up doing it at a young age. Amazing. But that's not quite the whole story.

So we got the whole story from him there. And Fab Morvan. He is half of Millie Vanley. And we go through the rise in the fall and the mindsets that it takes to survive something is publicly humiliating and traumatizing as what happened to him. Of course, our primary mission is to pass along there and our experiences and insights to you. In other words, the real purpose of this show is to have conversations directly with you. And that's what we're going to do today here on Feedback Friday. You can reach us at Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. So, Jason, what's going on?

I was in New York for 11 days. I come back and our download numbers are through the roof because of all the media that we're doing. So thanks to everyone who's coming to. back but now we have our work cut out for us man we got to impress a hell of a lot more people yeah man i missed you i hate when you go on those vacations it's no fun around here oh yeah nobody to talk to huh nobody to talk to sitting in the garage working on audio all by editing away yeah edit edit edit edit that's what we do around here when jordan is gone to play but man you've been killing it how many shows have you been on since we started this now 75 insane in four months you are a machine that's almost one every day Yeah, it's every day except for the Saturday Sunday, basically.

Oh, man. And there are people that can't even get on like one or two shows, and you're out there doing 75 in the few months that we've been doing this. That is the power of a good network in action, right there, people. That's true. I hadn't thought about that. I had not thought about that. Speaking of networking, let's teach these people some skills.

What's the first thing out of the mailback? Hey, Jordan and Jason. My question is about relationships. In the last year and a half, I've lost two close friends and a mentor. These were all relationships that I'm better off without as they were very selfish and were just using me for some reason or another. For all three of these relationships, I knew the end was coming, but I wasn't able to communicate with the other person in a way that could have either saved the relationship or ended it sooner without a bunch of resentment. These hard conversations are almost impossible for me as I always freeze up whenever I'm going to have them. And when I do manage to get into one of the conversations, I'm unable to express my true feelings and always sugarcoat everything to the point where I can't even.

get my point across. I'm currently in two relationships that are headed down this road, one with my girlfriend and one with my boss. With my girlfriend, I feel like I'm on a very short leash, and we often get in a lot of small, stupid arguments over little things due to this tension. Things like her getting upset when I don't spend the night at her place, or when I have other things I need to do, or honestly, just when I want to go home and relax by myself. My current boss is super nice, but the job is very boring, and I'm planning on going back to grad school. I've taken off a few days to visit grad schools, but have lied about it each time. Today I scheduled a meeting to tell her, but once again in the meeting I froze up and talked about something else instead. Oh, man. I'm not quite sure what's causing the

problem or how I can fix it. I've just tried saying, hey, I'm going to have more tough conversations, but I always chicken out when the chance comes, or I talk myself out of it by saying that it's not that important or not the right time to talk about it. I'm beginning to realize this is holding me back immensely in my relationships and is hurting not only myself but the people around me. Do you have any tips or books or previous podcasts I can listen to in order to help me with the issue? Non-confrontationally yours, people-pleaser. So this really is about people pleasing for sure. Yeah. Nailed it on that one. Look, it's normal to be afraid of disappointing people. What we don't see is that lying or avoiding the disappointment leads to more disappointment

and broken bridges in the long term. So we're sort of trading short-term well-being. Like, oh, good, I didn't have to deal with that for long-term problems. This is a common human thing to do. The real solution to this issue involves things like setting firm boundaries, practicing these boundaries as a habit, and potentially going through this type of thing with a therapist if it starts to creep into most of your relationships.

Because earlier he says, oh, I've had two close friends that I lost and a mentor that I lost. So now I'm going to lose my relationship with my boss and with my girlfriend. There's a common denominator here. Look, maybe some of these people were using you, but you're the common denominator here, man. That said, for the time being, I'm going to give you a little hack that has worked for me and others in the past, and I think we'll work well for you here as well. Before you go into a situation where you need to have a tough talk, send an email with the agenda. It doesn't have to be as formal as it sounds. Just, for example, draft an email to your boss.

Tell her you'd like to talk to her about taking some time off to study for the GRE or whatever grad school entrance exam and go visit grad schools. Then send the email. Now, once you've done this, you've let the cat out of the bag and you can't chicken out because she's going to bring it up instead. If there are consequences to be had, you'll have them. But mostly you'll just feel relief. I mean, you're going to feel stressed before because you're going to, what, is the shoe going to drop? She's going to yell at me. She's going to hit me in the head with a trophy when I walk in to her office.

Because her boss always keeps trophies in her office just for beating up her employees. Right. You know those commemorative plaques you get like salesperson of the year. And it's like the stupid glass thing on a crappy formica base. That's what you're going to hit with. You'll feel like you get hit with that. And then she's just going to bring it up. And you're going to go, that wasn't so hard.

For your girlfriend, you can email her what you'd like to discuss and then do it. It's a bit awkward because she'll probably ask why you didn't just tell her in the first place. But that's okay. You can tell her why you're emailing because you don't want to chicken out of the conversation while trying to spare her feelings. and do not text this stuff instead of email. I know you're thinking, oh, just text my girlfriend. It would be different. Obviously, you wouldn't text your boss anyway.

You might try to substitute this with the girlfriend. Do not do that. There's something about the asynchronicity of email that makes this a one and done, not some sort of long, drawn out text interaction where you end up chickening out anyway during the text conversation because you start like, hey, what's up? I have something to talk to you about. I want to go to Chipotle for dinner, right? You'll still be working your way up and chickening it out in the text.

You've got to just do a one and done in the email. Just get it out there in the email. You wouldn't write an email like, I want to talk to you about something. Send. Here's the other thing. Send. You're just going to have to send it. And there it is.

And then it's off. Rip off the Band-Aid. Try it. Rip off the Band-Aid. See that most of the fear around this is built up in your head. It doesn't exist in reality. The consequences, that is. You'll also find that being transparent and up front is a huge.

huge relief. This is a superior way to handle these types of situations moving forward. So give it a shot. Once the cat's out of the bag, you're going to feel anxiety, and then when you handle it, you're going to feel relief, and then you'll realize that you probably don't need to worry about this. And you might even not have to use the email trick anymore, but it's really, it's so nice, because you just don't give yourself that out. You know, you show up or you avoid that person, and they're like, hey, you said you were going to talk about quitting, what's going on? And, And there it is, all on the table. Now, one of the things that gets me about this is what people pleasers said, that this is, you know, systemic.

It's happening over and over again. Do you have any tips on how he cannot get into this situation going forward? Because it seems like he's just putting off even little conversations that he could be having instead of, you know, building up to the big one, which now he knows how to get into and make happen. But I feel like he needs to have little smaller, difficult conversations along the way. so he doesn't get to this point, nibbling away at it, you know, as it were, before it becomes this giant thing that he has to deal with. Yeah, before there's a Band-Aid that needs to be ripped off. There needs to be discussions about this. So this happens when you're putting things back and pushing things back and not being truthful about your intention. So the reason that this sort of Band-Aid trick works is because if this is easy enough, you know, it's not going to be easy, easy, but if you feel the anxiety and you go and you do it anyway and then you go, oh, that wasn't so bad, then you're going to realize,

Well, wait a minute. All of this pushing everything off to the last minute and then finally sending the agenda email, all that can be avoided if you get ahead of it. So this is kind of a baby step in that direction. So eventually you'll realize, oh, this confrontation thing, not that big of a deal. Setting boundaries is a whole different animal, though. You know, being upfront about what you want to do, what you want to say. I would recommend, there's a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover.

It's pretty old, but there's drills in there. And one of the drills is writing down your boundaries. Like, I will only spend the night at my girlfriend's house on weekends because you go to work tired the next day or whatever. Write these things down. You can share them with other people. It's fine. This is a learning and growing process. And part of this is you're afraid that people won't like you if you have boundaries.

And the truth is, some people won't respect those boundaries or they'll try to push them away or break them. Your girlfriend might get really mad at you that you want to have boundaries about this. But you know what? that stuff isn't going to work for you long term. And it's better to come to that realization now than later on down the line. I found that when I exercise my boundaries and people know that I have boundaries, it gives me more, I don't know if it's respect in their eyes, but because I'm not a pushover. And when I push back on things that I just won't give in on, it kind of, you know, just sets the tone of the relationship and makes it easier down the line.

I'm like, no, I told you, I'm never going to Chipotle again. That's it. It just seems like when you stand up for yourself early in the relationships, it makes things easier. So when you get to the Band-Aid moment, it's like, ah, this is no big deal. Yeah, I agree with you there. I think setting boundaries does generally make this stuff a lot easier. And it's up to you to get there. All right, next up.

Hi. How are you supposed to act? Or what are you supposed to do on a date to change the atmosphere from just hanging out with a friend to a date? Cheers. Pivot from Powell to party. Ah, man. What do you think of this one, Jordan? I'm surprised this one is in here.

I feel like I'm back in time, going back in time. So I've thought about this a lot in my past life as a coach in this particular area. And the difference is sexual escalation. So there are different types of touch. There's different types of interest. And these are things I don't really want to get into here, especially on a feedback Friday. but I will say that it's okay to say this is a date, right, before you go out. I wouldn't spring it on somebody when they're with you and they're like, oh, what?

I would be really clear about it. And that's really a lot easier, especially if you're younger, which it sounds like this person might be. Like, hey, we should go out sometime. I'd like to get to know you better. There are different types of touch, different types of interest. Again, I don't want to get into the weeds on this because this is not a dating show. So we're going to be doing more of that stuff with Marnie coming up soon on a feedback Friday. Taking it slow, though, is fine.

I would say that going along and just treating somebody like you're getting to know them is perfectly fine, as long as you are forthright about your intentions. Don't be too chicken about this stuff, though, or she will think you just want to be friends and then it's hard to recover from there. And I think a lot of guys go through this. They don't want to say that they're interested because they're afraid to get rejected. so then by the time they feel comfortable saying they're interested, the girl's like, what are you talking about?

Been hanging out with you for like two years. You don't have said anything. Mr. Creepy now. Yeah. Because from just the way that he worded this question, because I didn't edit this question, this is straight from the horse's mouth. It sounds like he's gotten her out on the date as for any means possible.

You know, it's like, hey, just go get some wings. And then it's like, oh, now that I've got her, how do I make it into a date? I thought about that as well. I think you're right because the question is, how are you supposed to, what are you supposed to do on a date to change the atmosphere from just hanging out with a friend to a date? So I could be reading into this too much. But if you've gone out with somebody and they don't know it's a date, you don't want to try

to turn it into a date. Yeah. Because that's a problem. That's you hanging out with a friend and then suddenly you're like, by the way, I have these secret attention. So you should be forthright about it. You don't have to say, I want to take you out on a date. you can say, I'd like to hang out sometime and get to know you better when there's not this huge

group of other people. I'd like to hang out in a time and place where our friends aren't distracting me because I like you. That stuff is ballsy and will set the stage. And if she says, well, no, then she's not interested. And if she blushes and says, okay, then you're good. You know, this is something I wish I'd known years ago. Being upfront about your intentions, it's great because it puts the, the cards on the table and then you're not out going,

am I just having wings? Is this a date? What's happening? Yeah. Transitioning from friend to romantic partner is fine. It happens all the time. You shouldn't be trying to do it in real time, though, in the middle of a hangout session. All right.

Next up. Hi, guys. I'm 22 and I have a good job that will be my lifelong career, assuming nothing goes wrong. Okay, well, you're 22. So I don't know if it'll be your lifelong career, but props to you for being in a place where you hope that that's the case. Yeah, positive attitude, man. Positive attitude.

However, my two best friends are still stuck in a kid's mindset. They don't have jobs and just sit around smoking weed, which is illegal in our state, by the way, and playing video games all day. Neither of them have held a job for longer than a week in about a year. I try and set them up with jobs and keep them motivated, but nothing seems to work. I try different angles like talking about willpower and other stuff, but they always just say they lack the motivation to keep working or to do anything, really. They live in the same house, and they would often accost me for food. For new years,

I quit smoking cigarettes and have stopped letting them mooch money off me, excluding special occasions. After a week or so, they realized it's not my duty to feed them, and all is back to normal. Our differing lifestyles are becoming more noticeable. If we aren't playing video games together or smoking weed, will often lapse into awkward silences because those things are all we really have in common now. We've been friends for about six years, and we've all spent time and effort helping each other in the past. I even lived with one of them for a while, but can no longer trust him with money

because he spends it as soon as he gets it. It was with your help that I quit cigarettes and started placing boundaries in my relationships, so I figured I should listen to your advice about the five closest friends thing too. Is there any advice you can give in this situation? I would love to find a way to help them. Thanks in advance, Stoner's dragging me down.

Ooh, this is awful. Yeah. So this is really unhealthy. You spend a lot of time around guys that mooch off of you that are going nowhere and that don't want to go anywhere. It's not like they're trying. They haven't had a job for longer than a week in a year. Why? How are they paying for weed?

Yeah, who's paying for the weed? That's what I want to know. You can't force people to change. These two guys, by the way, they outnumber you. While you're off at work or working on your career or at the gym, they're stoned playing video games. That's it. They outnumber you, man. leave them alone to do their thing.

But you can have an open door for when they're ready to change if that ever happens. But I think it's time to upgrade your friends. You're on the upswing. This is really not going to do well for you. They're going to try to control you with guilt at some point, most likely. If you move too far away from them, they're going to weigh you down. They're going to bum money off you. They're going to keep you smoking weed and playing video games, man.

You let them mooch from you on special occasions. What special occasion is it that they can't pay for their own food? I don't understand. I get that they're broke. Why are they your friends? That's the problem. Yes, they helped you in the past. They're relying on that to keep you down now.

I mean, I just don't get it. It's not like they're having a rough time and they need the help. They're just lazy. They're just lazy. They're not trying. So this is terrible. Go to advancedhuman dynamics.com slash level one. We'll link this in the show notes.

This is where we teach a lot of the networking, relationship development stuff. There's some drills reaching out to people, maintaining your network, reactivating dormant and weak ties. It's time for you to start hanging out with some other people. We're here for you, man. That's one reason we do this now to provide the resources you need to move up and forward.

So check out those advanced human dynamics, level one drills, and get after it, man. Don't spend any more time with these guys than you have to. Next. Hey, Jordan. I'm a high school student from Australia. As common as it is in high school, I have trouble figuring out whether my friends are just hanging around me because it would be too awkward not to as we've been seen. seen as a group by everyone else in the grade, or if they truly care and want to be friends.

I'm the type of person that would much rather be upfront and transparent, but I understand not everyone is like that. My friends tend to make decisions about group activities without me, even when we said we would plan things together, and sometimes they don't include me or even tell me the activities they plan. I guess this is because sometimes I can tend to be negative regarding certain topics such as grades, politics, and religion. It should also be noted that I have mental and family issues that affect me, but I'm trying my best to get better. So my question is, do my friends really want to be friends with me? And knowing it's extremely hard to join into a new circle, what should I do?

You're sincerely a confused student. Hmm, this is interesting. I'm not really sure that it is hard to join a new circle. I mean, I get that it's hard in general, but it's unlikely that people would be friends with someone they didn't like or didn't value. It happens, but it's rare. Very rare. It's really rare. Yeah.

And look, the value might be that you're the person that everybody can blame for something or whatever, right? There's different types of value. I don't see that in here. But it seems like they're not being mean or rude to you or pushing you away. They probably see the negativity and they plan without you, but it sounds like maybe it's more thoughtless than deliberate. It's hard to say, again, from the context here. but somebody planning without you and then inviting you along, it would be different if they weren't inviting you along.

So it seems like maybe they just know you're not going to take charge, so somebody else plans, and that's the way it is. The real problem here, though, is your self-esteem and the other issues that you say are in your way. I would address those and not the issues you seem to have with external relationships like your friends. You need to work on the relationship with yourself. I know that sounds cliche, but you clearly have something going on here.

your friends are not going to be the solution this isn't the other people's issue the friend's thing is a distraction you can't fix those relationships until you fix yourself or at least start to get that process started and the more that you let this go the more it's going to weigh on the healthy people that are around you so i would get this going now don't wait too long you don't want to be the person who's constantly dragging people down and then figure out you need to get this handled because nobody will call you back so get it done now while you have a caring service of people around you that still include you. That's a good foundation from which to heal.

Yeah, the one thing that threw me for a loop here is when she says it would be too awkward because they were seen as a group, that alone right there says, okay, they do actually care about you because in high school and you're seen like with people around you, if somebody didn't like you, you're out of the group immediately. Yeah, especially women, man. Exactly. So since you are still in the group, that means you're in the, you're in the, you're in, you're the club, you know. It's not that they're keeping you around because they want to be seen with you.

That's not how that works at all in high school. You know, looking at it from the outside after going through it, you might see it since you're still on the inside, but that's really not how it works. If people are hanging out with you in high school, they want to hang out with you, period. Because if there's anything that they might be embarrassed by or whatever else, you're out of the group like that. So I would definitely do what Jordan says. Look inside because they're, they're cool with it. Maybe they just don't include you in things that in the past you've kind of kvetched about and, you know, we're negative about. And they're like, oh, well, you know, she didn't want to go put putt, but golfing before. So we're not going to take her next time. So we're just

going to plan it, go. And then you get jealous because they went and didn't invite you along. So look at the activities also and see if you in the past have kind of complained about that. And maybe that's the activity. I, you know, I'm just throwing things out because I believe that these people want you in the group, period. Yeah, it seems like that's the way it, it, It's going to be. If you're not in the group, you're not in the group, like you said. You know, you nailed it there. All right, next up. Hey, Jordan. I'm a 25-year-old single man with no children and a passion for the outdoors. I've wanted to work for the National Park Service ever since I graduated high school.

I have no further education, which I plan on changing ASAP, in all of my work experience is from factories, retail, call centers, and one summer of being a trail guide on a horse ranch. Living in rural Kentucky, these are most of the options for someone in my shoes. I currently work at a factory making $13 an hour. I've been there as a temp for four months and about to go full time with a pay raise to $16 an hour. This is a decent wage for the area and I have a lot of bills. The only thing is, I hate this job and I've got nothing to gain from it besides a paycheck. The experience is even worthless.

I was going to stay with this company for a while until I got an email from the National Park Service regarding an application that I filled out a few months ago. It said I was qualified for a cave guide position. Awesome, right? that's totally awesome. And they were referring me to the hiring manager at the National Park close to my town. I feel like this job could be life-changing for me, the big break, some might say. But I'm afraid that they'll offer me a job.

If that were to happen, it would only be a six-month contract until they hire again when the season rolls back around. The job would be like $13 an hour like I'm currently getting paid and doing fine with, but I will miss the $16 that I will be making soon. I want to go to school and study forest management regardless. A federal job would look great on my future resume as well. I'm lost on what I should do. Should I accept a life-changing offer, put in a two-week notice, and then get a different job during the off-season? Or should I play it safe and stick with my current unfulfilling job, stacking boxes until I one day finished college?

Sincerely, a factory worker stuck in a machine. Oh, man. So this is a hard choice, but you should always build your skills for the future. Always. The money's good. I get it. I get that you're going to make more doing the other thing. The money is good, but the difference in pay after taxes is minimal and is the equivalent of, frankly, just a few luxuries. You don't have a wife, you don't have kids. You're able to be as Spartan as necessary. And if you like things like being a cave guide, I have a feeling that you don't need to have every fancy gadget in your house. Just a stereotype here that I hope is accurate. Get a job at an outdoor store or something else during the offseason or go back to the factory if you can, if you really need. to do. But experience like this, it builds skills. I call them bricks on the show, which you can then take with you towards your goal of being a park ranger in the future. So the best way to get a job

is to get the job. What I mean by that is you having a federal government job in a park is a much bigger step towards going to become a park ranger than a factory job that paid $4 an hour or more, really. So anything that takes you away from the job, like a bump in pay at that factory, could actually take you further away from your long-term goal, even if it seems more comfortable in the short term. And people realize this in other industries. That's why there are things like interns at radio stations or startup people that intern for

big tech companies and things like that. These are positions where you go, all right, I'm probably going to get hired out of this. you have a better chance of being hired at the equivalent of an internship as a cave guide than you do being hired having done another type of job unless it was the actual job that you're looking for you're right adjacent to what you want to do career wise don't let money keep you away from that look i know that's easy for me to say but frankly what he said is it's a what is it a four it's a three dollar a three dollar a pay difference yes that adds up but That said, it's not like, oh, I can be an unpaid cave guide and then I'm closer to the job or I can eat and survive at this other job.

This is a minimal difference that's probably the difference. Worst case, even if you're already super Spartan, this is the difference between driving and riding the bus every month. You know, this is that for a short period of time. And if it's not that, it might be video games. You know, this could be, I guess I can't replace my laptop. I mean, there are things that you can do to make up the difference, even if it means. means that next time you have off time, you're busting your tail working as much overtime as possible at either the factory or a sporting goods store, saving up, living Spartan, and then doing this

job and then making up for the lost income and savings. There are ways to get around this. I highly recommend doing that instead of going for the money, especially when the money is just a tiny, tiny little difference. Yeah, for me, this is a no-brainer. Take the job immediately. if they offer it to you take the job because there's there's a couple other benefits that Jordan didn't mention here is one is you are going to be in the system you're going to learn how the system works and you're also going to find out if the system is where you want to be you've had a dream of working for the National Park Service but you've never worked there so you don't know if that's where you really want to be and this will give you the chance to get in the system and see if that's

what's really right for you I mean you're 25 so you've had the dream for a long time but get in there, you know, make the relationships and find out if it's right for you. And if it is right for you, maybe in the off season, you'll meet some people that will have other opportunities that you can work for because since there is an off season, other people that work for the same system are off as well and may be able to take you with them for the offseason jobs. And you're just going to learn everything that you need to know if that's what you really want to do for your career. But get in the system immediately. If that's, you know, what you've dreamt of doing, that three bucks, Yeah, it's nothing. Jordan had nailed that on the head. That is, after taxes, it's literally like almost nothing. You can just switch to one meal a day for ramen and that'll take care of it. But yeah, take the job, dude, immediately.

That is not nutrition advice, by the way. It's just so you know. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, you don't look for me for nutrition. I'm just, I'm, I'll keep you alive, but I'm not going to give you a six-pack. How's that? Yeah, yeah, there you go. If you're really starving, email me. I've got meal replacement parts coming out of my wazoo. You can have some. All right, next up. Hello, Jordan, Jason, and team. I'm an entrepreneur that started and grown three successful companies over the last 12 years. Sounds all well and good except that I'm dying on the inside. I've tried for the last couple of years to leverage my current situation into something that's more fulfilling and not so toxic for me.

I'm not going to waste time fleshing out the specific problems of why things suck at the moment. Just know that I'm aware that happiness and fulfillment are not a place or a situation, but rather are what you make of your place and or situation. Although I'm going to continue working on myself to optimize my power over these things, it doesn't mean that I have to remain where I am to do so. I can optimize both and improve both my situation and perspective. This is the crux of why I'm writing a podcast for help. As I see it, my problem is twofold.

Hurtle 1. I'm 36 and I've not had a boss, nor have I been reviewed by anything but the market since I was 21. My resume consists of strengths and relevant accomplishments whereby I'm the only one who can back any of it up. My previous two ventures were self-funded and my current business is backed by an investor that will not be happy to know I'm leaving. Hurtle two. I'm looking for advice on how to reach out to relevant actors or leaders in my fields of interest to gain insight on potential career paths not widely known to the general public, whereby I could potentially utilize my existing business acumen. I could cold call, but I'm not sure that would be the best approach. I've maintained a fair amount of relationships with successful professors from university,

as well as some industry professionals, but it feels like a big ask for introductions to people they may not even know out of the blue. Should have maintained those relationships a little better. I know. He's listened to the show before I get. Yeah, take the well before you're thirsty, man. Got to do that. You're right.

FYI, I have a degree in political science, and I'm trying to move into a position more routed in my degree. international relations, international trade or commerce, food security, national security, etc. The end goal is not so important here, but you get the idea. This ultimately feels like a framing or legitimacy issue coupled with imposter syndrome, hurdle one, and a networking or leveraging social capital problem, hurdle two. Genuine love for all you do. Wish you were around in my 20s, signed political exile.

Wow, this is a good question, really detailed, but not so detailed that we had to spend 20 minutes reading it. You know who you are? So congrats on the successful businesses and things like that. Look, yes, you should have maintained those relationships earlier. Got to start now. Best time to plant a tree was 100 years ago. Second best time is right now. Make a list of the connections that you think you will need.

Do that first. Make a list of those connections. Who do I need to meet? Why do I need to meet them? Who do I think might know them? Then reach out to your network and ask. Yes, even reaching out cold is fine because your other option is. not reaching out at all, which is not good.

And use the Level 1 reengagement techniques for the next several weeks. What those are, I'll go over those here, but the full drills are at advancedhumanidynamics.com slash level one. The first one is text engagement. Open up your iPhone or your Android. Open up the text program. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of your texts. Those are the people that you haven't texted in a while.

Go through in text like 10 of those people. Hey, it's been a long time. Haven't spoken to you in a minute. Hope all as well. Sign your name so that they don't say new phone, who it is, and say no rush on the response, because then they know you're not going to try to sell them something. Do the same thing with email. Go in your email program.

Type in some random letters. You'll see names that you spot. Do this when you're in line for coffee, right? You know, you type in AD and it's like, Adam Franklin. Oh, I haven't talked with him in a while. Send him an email. Same script as before. Been a minute.

How you doing? What's the latest? No rush on the reply. Sign your name. And do this layoff lifelines exercise where you may. make a list of connections that you haven't spoken to in a while that you think are high value, reengage those people now before you need anything. Because you kind of do need something now, but I would reengage and start sort of

fermenting those relationships once again. Start implementing this stuff now. This isn't going to be an easy fix because you've let all this rust for so long, but start by leveraging your skills as an entrepreneur to get back into the corporate world. Maybe you could work for one of your suppliers, an investor, a customer, of one of your existing businesses. Those people already have a relationship with you. They probably already look up to you.

Those are some of the best places to start with this while you reengage those dormant and weaker ties. Now, best of luck with this, this is as good a time as any to learn that you need to dig the well before you're thirsty and to get started doing this. So if you're listening to this also, and you haven't been working on maintaining your relationships because you think you won't ever be thirsty, take this guy political exile here as an example. Successful at age 22,

now trying to get back into it. Networking is not for people who lack options. It is for everyone. And if you find out the hard way, it's going to hurt. So go grab those drills, advancedhumandynamics.com slash level one

or go to advancedhumandynamics.com and click on level one and get started. Those are up now. I put a lot of work into those things. You can't tell because I'm crap on camera, but I'm happy to be there for you guys. I'm working on level two soon. these are really good, man. This is some of my best stuff. It's free. It's not a product. It's free. It's there because if people knew this stuff, the world would be a different place. I'm not kidding. All right, next up.

Hey, Jordan and Jason. I'm 44 years old, married with four kids and have a stable, responsible job that I enjoy in our family business. I own my own home and generally can't complain about my life. However, there is one thing that I've always struggled with. I'm a shy, softly spoken person by nature, and at every stage in life, whether it be school, work, among friends, my running club, etc., I've had the issue of not really standing out in a crowd. I'm the person who in a group tends to be ignored when they talk or even get spoken over top of. I'm only a short guy, and since I lost a lot of weight a couple years ago, I've lost the feeling of having any sort of presence in a group at all. Being a healthy wait for the first time in my adult life is great, but it only adds to this issue, it seems. Given much of my job is to build relationships with our suppliers and manage staff, I need to make sure I make a positive and memorable impression and speak with some authority.

Do you have any tips on what I can do to try and achieve this? Thanks in advance for your help. Regards the Invisible Man. Huh. Interesting question. Okay. Yeah. So the shyness.

Yeah. Okay. Could be a lot of things. We'll start with some presence here. You're probably used to hiding because of the fact that you were smaller. Well, you were overweight, but you were smaller, shorter, shy and overweight. So the first thing, this is not an easy. fix but the first thing that I can say presence wise is to speak in statements I know that when

people talk over top of other people one of the things that we teach at our live program for advanced human dynamics is we often will teach people to speak in statements and what that means is instead of saying where do you want to go for lunch guys you say where do you want to go for lunch guys that's still a question is just a more dynamic and I don't want to say forceful but more dominant and I hate that word I hate it way to speak and we're not dominating other people but when we speak in questions when we speak with that upward tone a lot of people actually make statements in that tone which is not good at all so if you speak in statements even when you do questions you will break or at least start to break

the habit because i bet that you speak in question tone a lot a lot of people do this especially people who get talked over or ignored now the second thing is use a little bit more touch to get attention in groups. Somebody just recently asked me in an email, what was that thing when people are talking in a circle? How do you get in the group? You put two fingers on the shoulders of two people in the circle who you want to get in between. So just left hand out, right hand out, almost like you're going to type, but only using two fingers on each hand. And you just put that on the person's upper shoulder blade where they can feel it. And people will naturally turn towards that. Both of them will turn towards you at the same time because you're doing this at the same time.

they'll open up and then they will let you in the circle. It's like magic. And then as you're in the circle talking, punctuate the conversation with touch. You know, your hands in front of you when you're talking. In fact, if people are talking and talking and talking, they're not giving you an opportunity, put one of your hands in front of you, not like a raised hand, but straight out in front of you, palm down, people will naturally look at that and it sort of signals subconsciously that it's your turn to talk. So if you punctuate the conversation with touch, you use your hands a little bit more, you speak in statements, that is going to get people listening to you and giving you a chance to speak because it will increase your presence. This is really hard to diagnose without seeing you, which is why we run events where we see people in person.

But give this stuff a shot, and it should improve your situation quite a bit. Then keep in touch with us and let us know how it works out. All right. Last but not least. Jordan, one summer when I was home from college, a few high school friends and I all picked winners for the college football. bowl games and had a competition to see who could get more correct with a point system attached. It gradually grew and one year partially out of necessity but partially as a lark, my good high school friend James created a website to manage the pool. Today we've got over 300 people participating annually and I use the event as a way to maintain contact with weak ties. Not consciously at first,

but it's definitely part of why I keep it going. The problem I have is that the site hasn't been updated in years. We've had plenty of fixes and upgrades we've collectively identified over the years, and I want to get those changes made. With my friend as the site designer, however, I'm stuck asking him to do it. If he just said no, I could move on, hire someone, and not feel guilty. But every year for the last four years, he said yes, agreed to a specific list of changes, and then just not followed through. If I hire someone, I'm worried I'd offend his sense of ownership over this thing we've done together and damage the friendship. If I offer him money to do it, that's just. also feels like turning a fun quote unquote friend thing into something transactional.

If I just ride him and guilt him, however, it's still uncomfortable and never gets done. Advice for moving forward? Separately. If you think I should find someone, suggestions on how to hire a freelance webperson to execute the vision I've got at a reasonable rate for a zero income site. Thanks in advance, football fixer upper. All right. So keys to something like this is you have to give them a way out. So here's what I would say.

we're all too busy to maintain this thing. Let's just chip in and hire it out. And what he's going to do is probably object and say, no, I'm going to do it. I know, yeah, it's taking me forever. You know, everyone's so busy. But no, I'll totally do it, man. I'll totally do it.

Which he hasn't done, which he's been doing for years, right? So then when he does that, insist on paying him. I know that sounds weird, but insist on paying him. You could say, well, I want to make sure that you get paid so that everything is fair because we don't want to take advantage of you. This way, either he agrees to get it hired out or he agrees to take the money. At that point, he's accountable.

Don't take no for an answer here. Because it's easy enough to force somebody to take money, right? It's hard to be like, do this and do it now. And he's like, man, it's free, man, you're taking advantage of me. Insist on paying him. Because this time, it's not because he's disorganized. It's not because he's not getting it together. blah, blah, blah, you're giving him a way out.

It's because you respect his time. You don't want to ask too much of him because, you know, he's so valuable. That's what you've got to do. Because there's no scenario here in which he says, no, I don't want the money and agrees to do it and then doesn't do it. You're insisting on this. You can shove the money into his hand. You can send it to him via PayPal. And either he'll get the hint that it needs to get done.

It's very unlikely that he'll take everyone's money and then just never do it. That would be surprising. How does he hire this freelancer, Jason? You're experienced in this world. Well, yeah, if he needs to hire a freelancer for his friend's not going to do it, even though you shove a bunch of cash in his hand, get a referral through him because he works in the business. He's going to know people that can have his same set of skills.

You know, that's the best way to do it because, you know, that's the way I do it. And that's the way everybody I know in the same in the web biz does it. Now, if you do have to hire it out and he doesn't have anybody that can do it, First things first, set your budget. No one cares if it's a no-income website. You need to have professional work done, so be prepared to pay for it. You don't hire a plumber and say, look, this is a low-income toilet. It doesn't really make me any money, but it's not working.

What kind of deal can you give me to fix it? And website people hear that a lot. But, you know, once you set your budget, double it, because it's always going to go over budget. Because your friend built it. He knows how it works. somebody coming in does not know how it works and there is going to be a ramp up time most people don't budget that into their budget and that's when things go over budget so double your budget because your friend is going to low ball it because he thinks he can do it for cheap but he doesn't

understand that somebody else is going to have to learn what he does now the other thing is break the project up into single milestones and you don't want to have this big monolithic redo with all of the things that you guys have put together for four years and then go over budget and not be able to pay the guy, then you don't have your updates and you're out the money and everything's a mess. Just break it down into small tasks so the new programmer can do them one at a time and you pay them one at a time. So if you run out of money, you've at least got some updates done. The programmer's done and you can move about it. And then next year when you guys have more money, you can hire somebody back to do more updates. But breaking it down into discrete tasks is important.

And as for finding someone else who's not a friend, I asked all my friends in the business. The only place that I found that everybody agreed upon was a site called Upwork. Now, you're going to have to do your own due diligence on the programmer that you bring in, but from all of the research I've done, because I researched this for two weeks, to try and find anybody like Elance or any of the other companies out there, this is the only one that people have recommended constantly. So I would try Upwork. And that's how you hire a freelancer.

and get your site fixed. You know, the CEO or the founder of Upwork listens to this show. I'll be damned. I know. I know. Can't even believe it. Recommendation of the week. Jay, so this is, okay, this is weird AF.

I'm just going to throw that out there. It's called Tickled. This is not on Netflix. It's on HBO, if you have that, HBO Go or whatever, you know, the app is where I found it. This is just, okay, I'm already reconciled. of regretting recommending this, but Jenny found it. I'm just going to throw that out there. This guy was hiring people to make these like tickle wrestling videos, which is like super weird, homoerotic stuff. Okay. And these guys were getting lured into it, these college guys,

but then he was kind of being weird and twisting around and using it to sort of blackmail these guys in a way. And so this documentary gets into like, what? is this all about and then starts to try to chase this guy down and follow him. And it turns out that he's like this weird old money guy who gets off on the whole power. It is so weird, but it is worth the psychological exploration of what this is. It's called tickled. Just bear in mind. It is super bizarre. You know, when this first came out, a bunch of friends of mine were talking about it because I think it was on Greg Barron's old podcast because it was a tickly podcast. It was part of the joke about it. And I think that they were in it for a little bit. But, yeah,

Yeah, it turns out that it is not what you think it is when you read the title. No, it's not. Yeah. I watched it and was just like, what is happening right now? What did my wife get me into? Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone that wrote in this week. Don't forget, you can email us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com to get your questions answered on the air.

Happy to keep you anonymous, of course, we always do. A link to the show notes for this episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. And don't forget our Alexis skill, Jordan Harbinger.com. Alexa. It gives you a little daily briefing, little flash briefing, clips from the show, things you can look forward to from the show, or a little reminder of something from a past episode you may or may not have heard. Quick shoutouts to CastBox team out in San Francisco. One of the best ways to listen to podcast, the Cast Box app for Android and iOS. And Steve Davis, he had surgery and is binge watching the documentary recommendations from

Feedback Friday. Get well soon, Steve. And Jason, did we make a page for all the documentaries that we recommend? I thought we did. Yeah, we've actually got a page up right now. Go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash movies, where we list all of the documentaries and other things that we found that we talk about on feedback Friday here. Nice. Jordan Harbinger.com slash movies. Jordan Harbinger.

For the other stuff. Show notes, of course, also at Jordan Harbinger. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Jordan Harbinger. Great way to engage with the show. Jason, where are you? I'm on Instagram at JPD, Twitter as JPD, and you can check out my other podcast, Grumpy. old geeks every Monday. And all my other links and blog posts are up over at jpd.me, revamping that right now and hopefully have some good stuff up there soon. Nice. Keep sending in those questions to Friday

at jordanharbinger.com. Share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We got a lot more in the pipeline. We're excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. Hey, if you like this podcast, check out the Dennis Miller option. Everyone's not an option of our podcast. It's called, he's got a show called the Dennis Miller option. I know that's confusing. Every Wednesday at Podcast 1, the snarky king of comedy is back to provide his no-holds-barred opinion on current events, politics, pop culture, and whatever else is on his mind. Check out the Dennis Miller option at Podcast 1 and Apple Podcasts. This episode is sponsored in part by Something

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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.